Springfield man pleads guilty in murder of girlfriend's son

Mar. 11, 2014

Austin Pelley

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The Springfield man accused of killing his then girlfriend’s 2-year-old son has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Austin M. Pelley, 23, entered the plea Monday in an agreement with prosecutors. Pelley had been charged with second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death and was scheduled to face a jury trial this week. That jury would have decided if Pelley was guilty of one of those two charges or none at all.

Pelley’s defense made a motion last week to reschedule the trial, citing difficulties in reaching potential witnesses, before Pelley’s plea this week.

According to court records, Pelley will serve the 11 years in the state Department of Corrections with probation denied.

According to court documents, Chelsea Garrison allowed Pelley, whom she had been dating for two to three months, to watch her son. She told police she left the house on June 15, 2012, to take a test at Everest College.

About 30 minutes later, neighbors of Pelley’s apartment say they heard two loud “booms” or “thuds” coming from the apartment, according to court documents.

Garrison told police that at 6:41 p.m. at school, she suddenly “got a weird feeling” about her son and called Pelley to check on him, according to search warrant documents.

Garrison said Pelley told her the boy went running into the bathroom and fell, according to documents.

Pelley said he found the boy on the bathroom floor crying and carried him into the living room to calm him, according to warrants. After about 15 minutes, the boy lay down on the living room floor and went into a catatonic state, documents say.

Garrison rushed her son to Mercy Hospital, where surgeons removed a portion of the boy’s skull to relieve pressure while he remained in “extremely critical condition,” documents say.

Two days later, the boy died.

An extensive autopsy revealed retinal hemorrhaging and abusive head trauma caused the death, according to documents.

Pelley had been out on bond in March 2013 when a woman he was dating — who also had a 2-year-old child — discovered Pelley had been charged with the 2012 murder and alerted police.

One of the conditions of Pelley’s release was that he not be around children.